Category: Rain

Soil bank

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
What the heck, it’s just some wet bricks in the deck.

Probably not a great day to bury the bullion in the backyard.

We got about a quarter inch of rain overnight, and the weather wizards say more is on the way, through Monday at the very least.

Anyway, you want to bury your treasure in the dead of night so the neighbors can’t get a fix on its location. You come home from the grocery and find a big empty hole in the ground where your portfolio used to be and it will flat spoil the rest of your day.

Still, it might be safer under the sod than in a bank. I’m the last person on Earth you’d call a financial genius, but when all the wiseguys seem to have their heads up their holes maybe your wealth should go down one, where they can’t get their greedy little fingers on it without some manicure-wrecking shovel work.

Party time

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
Her Majesty recovers from the stress of entertaining.

With one birthday down and one to go, things are back to what passes for business as usual around El Rancho Pendejo.

As you can see, Miss Mia Sopaipilla is greatly relieved. She is a creature of habit and not a fan of company, especially when said company evicts her from her bedroom.

And yes, of course Miss Mia Sopaipilla has her own bedroom. What are we, Nazis?

Meanwhile, our friendly local roof wizards have waved their wands overhead, just in time for what looks like a bit of spillover from the atmospheric river giving California such a brutal hosing.

Jiminy Chris’mus, South Lake Tahoe is starting to look like the ice planet Hoth, only with leaking roofs, exploding propane tanks, and rental cars stuffed into snowbanks, abandoned by fleeing tourists.

The Northeast is no better. Hijo, madre. And in between? Don’t ask.

Here, the worst we can expect is a bit of drizzle, maybe a soupçon of snow. And of course, the usual seasonal allergies as everything from azaleas to zinnias checks the long-term forecast and decides to scatter pollen far and wide, and all at once, too.

Ahhhhhh-choo! ’Scuse me.

Son of a beach

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
“We are not amused.”

Miss Mia Sopaipilla is doing her Queen Victoria impression again, so you know it’s not going to be sunny and fiddy-sumpin’ today in The Duck! City.

Happily, it was sunny and fiddy-sumpin’ the past couple of days, so I was able to get out and about on a two-wheeler, in this case the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff.

My man Chris Coursey, a beach bum and journo who rose from his humble origins to become Santa Rosa’s mayor and then a Sonoma County supervisor, probably longs for the days when he had to drive to the California coast to see a few gajillion tons of water in motion.

Friday and Saturday marked my first off-road rides of 2023, and they were a nice change from running, which I will probably return to today, if I can pull myself together in time to beat the rain to the punch.

Yes, the wizards are predicting rain, and even a small chance of snow, so I guess we’re getting a little spillover from the atmospheric rivers that have been drenching the West Coast.

I’ve never had to contend with weather like that, and I hope to keep that lucky streak unbroken. It makes the occasional four-foot Colorado snowstorm look like a day at the beach with a cold sixer and a hot girl.

It never rains, but it pours

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
We got a drive-by from that cloud over by the Sandias.

Thanks to everyone who has dropped a dime in Charles Pelkey’s GoFundMe tip jar.

As of 8:30 a.m. Dog time the fund was approaching $18,000, which as organizer David Stanley notes represents “a phenomenal level of love, affection, and admiration” for our old Live Update Guy pal.

I’ve added a widget to the sidebar for anyone who missed the memo. And it was delightful to see so many former VeloNews types in the list of donors.

Meanwhile, here in The Duck! City this morning we got a wet little kiss on the cheek from the gods; just enough rain to rinse some dust off the cacti. Thank you, sir or madam, may I have another?

I expect Herself and her pal Leslie are glad they canceled their trip to Southern California, where the rain is washing away the dust, the cacti, the hillsides the cacti are rooted to, and damn nearly everything else. Especially since the FAA developed a hitch in its gitalong, an IT failure of some sort that buggered about 4,600 flights.

That’s a surfin’ safari you can keep, is what. Nobody likes this drought, but who wants to hang ten on their front door while rocketing down a diversion channel to the Rio Grande?

High and (mostly) dry

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
’Tis a fine soft day at El Rancho Pendejo.

Tlaloc is having a wee this morning, and glad we are to see it. It’s been so dry even the cacti have the asthma.

If we’re really lucky this light rain will become snow and maybe stick around a while, soak in a bit. I can see a dusting up there along the ridgeline.

But the odds of any serious accumulation seem poor, on a par with Southwest Airlines returning your luggage (or you, for that matter) before the Fourth of July.

Still, it seems I was wise to get the ol’ bikey ridey in yesterday. Any outdoor exercise today is likely to involve running shoes and rain gear.

It feels weird to be sitting here, mostly high and dry, as an atmospheric river water-cannons the West Coast and the East Coast tunnels out from under a bomb cyclone.

One of the upsides of living in the high desert, I suppose. The downside being that in a couple years we’ll need “Dune”-style stillsuits for the long, hot hike to the farmers’ market.